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Rubes Self-Identify: Julian Assange's Backers Lose £200,000 Bail Money
...first gained notice in the United Kingdom as a young heiress, the daughter of Lady Annabel and Sir James Goldsmith. She was married to the retired Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan between 1995 and their divorce in 2004. For the next three years, from 2004 to 2007, Khan gained worldwide media attention by sharing the baloney with British film star Hugh Grant. She has nothing to do with pancakes... , are understood to have lost the £200,000 they posted for his bail as he remains holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy. The Wikileaks founder breached the conditions by seeking political asylum before he was due to be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. A raft of high-profile figures including socialite Jemima Khan, journalist John Pilger, film director Ken Loach and publisher Felix Dennis have all confirmed they raised the cash as security to help free him which a judge ordered be forfeited at an earlier hearing. Nine high profile backers, including two members of the British aristocracy, a Nobel Prize winner and an academic, were today told at Westminster Magistrates Court they have a month to show why the £140,000 they promised between them if he refused to surrender to the authorities should also not be lost. Ms Khan and the other celebrities who have confirmed they backed him financially are understood to have already handed over the cash as a security, meaning it was deposited with the court and they were not named on official documents as his supporters. The remaining nine all promised money as sureties when he was bailed in December 2010 meaning they would only have to hand over the money if he failed to surrender. Amongst those offering £20,000 sureties were retired Professor Tricia David; Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston, who helped unravel the human genome; former Sunday Times journalist Philip Knightley; Lady Caroline Evans, wife of former Labour minister Lord Evans; his personal friend Sarah Saunders, a catering manager; and Frontline Club founder Captain Vaughan Smith, who provided his Norfolk Country mansion as a bail address. Marchioness Tracy Worcester, 53, the model and actress turned environmental campaigner, offered £10,000 while his Wikileaks assistants Joseph Farrell and Sarah Harrison, both agreed to £5,000. Giving evidence DS Mel Humphreys, from the Met's extradition unit, confirmed that after the Supreme Court refused his appeal they gave Assange 14 day grace period then ordered he be extradited ten days after that. But on June 19, during that grace, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. A letter was served on him asking him to surrender to Belgravia cop shoppe. DS Humphreys said: "On June 29 11.30am came and went and Mr Assange did not surrender to the police." When asked why they did not arrest him for breaching bail conditions including curfew and residence at a home in Kent he replied: "There was very little we could do, he was in diplomatic premises therefore we cannot enforce any breach of bail because of the protection issues that occurred within the embassy." He agreed that he had heard the "speculation" that there were plans to storm the embassy and arrest him but added: "I am personally aware that coppers do not go storming into embassies. "As a police officer I do not go into embassies uninvited, I was also aware of the position the UK government would take on that." Posted by: trailing wife 2012-09-05 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=351438 |